It is already the third day of the Ghacks Christmas Giveaway and the responses have been great so far. Both the Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 post and the Newsbin / Giganews post got heaps of comments. The lucky winners of the five Newsbin Pro licenses and the five Giganews Diamond account winners will be notified by email later today.
Today’s giveaway is another popular software program. MediaMonkey Gold is an all in one music management solution. The MediaMonkey team provide a free version of their software with limited (but still extensive) features.
At its core is the ability to list all audio files of a computer system. The first step after the installation is the scan of parts – or all – of the computer’s storage devices. Music that is discovered that way will be automatically archived in various categories according to their tags. All files without tags will be moved into unknown folders.
Music is sorted by various parameters in the library including location, title, artist, genre or rating. Parameters can be removed or added to the library with a right-click on the item and the selection of Options > Choose Tree Nodes. The very same menu contains options to add or remove sortable columns which are used to display the music in the main panel.
The program layout makes it pretty easy to find specific music of the collection. The libraries and the main panel can be used to sort the music quickly. The search on the other hand is pretty fast as well which makes it the best option to find that one track that you are looking for.
Probably one of the first things that a new user will be doing is to make sure that his music collection is tagged properly. MediaMonkey comes with extensive means of tagging and cleaning a music collection. Options include automatically tagging from the web, tagging from information that the filename provides, synchronizing tags and cleaning them.
Music can also be tagged manually in the extensive tag editor. MediaMonkey comes with an auto-organizer that can rename the music collection with the help of selected tags.
Other features include:
- Easy Playlist creation with the ability to create automatic mixes
- Record, convert and burn music
- Build in Podcast Catcher
- Party mode
- Sync with iPhones, iPods, and most any MP3 phone or Audio Device
- Visualizations
- Statistics
MediaMonkey Gold adds several interesting new features to those of the free version. It provides the possibility to create multiple music collections which comes in handy if multiple users share a computer or if you want to keep music separated from each other.
Other features include a file monitor which will automatically monitor locations on the hard drive for new music. advanced auto playlists (create 256 Megabytes of music that match the following criteria), auto-conversion and leveling, cataloging physical music CDs, a sleep timer and more.
MediaMonkey can be extended with addons in various categories like visualization, DSP or devices much like Winamp or other music players.
Five free copies of MediaMonkey Gold have been donated and are up for grabs. If you want to win them write a comment. It would be nice if you would tell us what tool – or set of tools – you are currently using to manage your music collection.
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Hi,
I would like to get the Media Monkey Gold Edition. Currently, I am using both Windows Media Player & Media Monkey Free Edition. But I know that the Gold version is better in a few things. Thank you!
Regards,
AK
currently I’m using SAM Broadcaster (DSP) and Winamp
Sounds great – but first:
some greets from germany :)
I use atunes for my music libary
Using iTunes at the moment – desperately looking at alternatives!
Well…it is a good news indeed..getting some giveway for christmas will be great..
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I’m happy with iTunes. I just haven’t felt the need for something “better”.
I don’t know where I’d be without the “Monkey’ in my life :) Curious George is cute but MM never gets in trouble !
Am currently using iTunes to manage my music.
I will try it.
I’m using WMP ;)
I have been somewhat forced into iTunes because of the iPhone (I know there are alternative music managers, but iTunes makes it easiest), but use “The Godfather” for easy tagging (it tags based on filenames, syncs tags, renames files based on tags, etc).
I also use the free version of MediaMonkey to get album art (when iTunes can’t find it, which is often), and use MusicBrainz Picard for auto-tagging new files without any tag information.
Sounds complicated using all these tools, but I haven’t found a tool yet that does it all well.
This software is great! I’ve used the free version for a long time, just got the Gold version recently, if i win i’d donate the key to a friend, i know i can make some people happy with it :D
Been using MM free edition for years now. Would love to get my hands on the pro version!!
I use foobar2000 and MusicBrainz Picard to sort out my collection, but I saw a friend who had MM and watched him configure its options for portable device synchronisation. That seems to be its killer feature.
I haven’t seen any other app that does semi-random rating-weighted (i.e. more 5 star songs) synchronisation, and it even lets you modify nearly all of the encoder properties (i.e. VBR V2 32 < ~160 < 192kbps)
Truely awesome.
For seperate tracks I usually use a lighter mp3 player, like foobar, but if I want to keep my library sorted and upload stuff to my portable mp3 player I usually use MM :) Features are nice and it’s quite reponsive, possibly the best of it’s kind on Windows (I rather use Amarok in Linux though).
I’m using Jriver Media Jukebox 12 right now, the freeware edition. I’d like to try Media Monkey Gold!
Ghacks is great! I’m a daily visitor. Keep up the good work!
Greetings from Antwerp, Belgium.
I’m still using Windows Media Player for managing my media collection :( I know, it’s a pain, and I’m kind of lazy to try out other media managers out there. Most just clutters my desktop and can’t really deliver what’s promised.
Hopefully, MediaMonkey will not require much of my time to manage my collection.
Sometimes Windows Media Player
I use Media Monkey because I love how easy it is to have everything organized with it :)
WMP for want of a better alternative, and the time to check them out :-/
I am currently using iTunes mainly for the ipod sync and podcast downloads.
I’m trying to make Songbird obey me but it too unstable
I mainly use iTunes 8, and used to rely on JetShell from iAudio/Cowon
I’ve basically tried them all from foobar, wmp, winamp, itunes, media monkey too, to name a few and i must say that it really stands out of all the rest with its capabilities, even its standard version which i use is loaded with so many features! I’ll really love it if i get the pro version features! :-)
p.s. Thanks for all these useful software giveaways with your regular dose of useful articles! :-)
Ok I’ll throw my hat in for this one. I’ve always wanted to give it a try. Unfortunately my method of organizing my music consists of a bunch of folders. This looks like a better idea.
one of my personal fav
I use iTunes…and it blows.
This is a fantastic piece of software with so many features. In the ast I tried it and loved it however it cold not sync with the IPhone 3Gwhich it can now do. This is a big plus.
The features are endless and would consider purchasing a copy at this point.
Great giveaway!!
Love MediaMonkey! It’s so great for auto-tagging and auto-organizing, especially when most of my music is downloaded from p2p. The only reason I have iTunes installed at all is for the girlfriend who won’t learn to use MM!
I use the free version of MediaMonkey to help clean up my missing album art – I love how it can query amazon to fill in the missing information. I still have to use iTunes to handle iPod+Nike stuff. It would be nice to use only one program.